The Secret of the Stem

The celestial and the ordinary are joined in this surprising mix of poems, prose, and excerpted fiction. The poems speak to "the secret of the stem/where lie tunnels/the tunnels of the fairies/who sing songs of joy for their small size," and of a world where "A woman fails. Or is it just that the longing to see the soft curve of a shell, the imprint of a fan, a faint transparency, ceases?" Based in California and Hawai'i, Pianta is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in numerous literary journals and whose readings often incorporate music and multimedia.